Buck Harvey: Against all odds, there’s one path

We’re standing at midcourt in Memphis late Monday, the Spurs and Grizzlies gone, and I’ve got a question.

It’s a 30-year anniversary question.

Any similarities between your 1981 Celtics and the 2011 Spurs?

“I don’t see many,” Kevin McHale said, smiling.

I don’t see many, either. For one, a young Larry Bird won’t be suiting up for the Spurs tonight.

But if there’s a path out of a 3-1 deficit, it’s the one McHale and the Celtics followed. At the time, McHale was a rookie, and I was covering my first NBA team.

McHale is doing TNT commentary now, and he worked Game 4. He’s a better fit at this than he was as a general manager or coach in Minnesota. His personality is free to come through now.

It came through as a player. He was a brash rookie, and a playful one. We hit it off from the start, when he sat down next to me after his first practice and said a few laugh-out-loud things about his coach.

The attitude — and his 6-foot-11 body — made him an impact player even in one of the league’s more notable playoff series. After the Celtics and the Sixers had chased each other while putting together 60-win seasons, they met in an inevitable Eastern Conference finals.

The Celtics had home-court advantage, as the Spurs did, then lost it in the opener, as the Spurs did. Two uneasy losses in Philadelphia followed.

The Celtics had fallen flat in the playoffs the year before to the Sixers. Their body language said they were doing it again.

They trailed in Game 5, too, and tonight won’t be easy for the Spurs, either. The Grizzlies will feel better about themselves in this elimination game than they would in either of the next two.

But the Spurs won 61 games this year. As it was with the Celtics then, winning a home game is not too much to ask.

This is also part of the path required to come back from a 3-1 deficit. The team that is trailing needs to be the one with the home-court advantage.

But something else has to happen, and it was there 30 years ago. After the Celtics came back to win Game 5, they returned to Philly as if all emotion had changed.

McHale announced as much at the time. He memorably said the Sixers better win the next one — because they weren’t getting Game 7.

The Sixers sensed the same. Instead of looking forward to the next bounce going their way, they became less sure.

If that can happen to a powerful group of stars, is a young No. 8 seed immune?

McHale backed up his words, blocking a Sixers shot in the final seconds of Game 6 to protect the Boston lead. The tightening around Philadelphia’s throat was just beginning.

Playing for the Sixers then was a guard named Lionel Hollins. In the final seconds of Game 7, his steal set up a teammate, Maurice Cheeks, for two free throws to tie.

A Boston player, M.L. Carr, grabbed his neck at the free-throw line, giving Cheeks the choke sign. Cheeks responded in kind, missing one, summing up a team that had lost its 3-1 swagger.

Can all of that happen to the Spurs and Grizzlies? Again, McHale sees issues, beginning with a Memphis defense that isn’t going away.

Then there’s history. McHale’s Boston was one of eight teams that have come from 3-1 down to win, and 186 have failed.

But can the Spurs win a home game? Can they win in Memphis, where they came within a Zach Randolph 3-pointer of stealing one? Can they finally force the Grizzlies to feel nervous?